Rebecca Skloot on “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”

Extended discussion with author Rebecca Skloot, author of the best-selling book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” Johns Hopkins University announced plans this week to name a new research building after Lacks, an African-American woman who permanently changed modern medicine nearly 70 years ago when it was discovered that her cells could live forever. These “immortal cells” have helped scientists produce remedies for numerous diseases, including the first polio vaccine, that have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. But Lacks’s cells were taken without her consent when she was a patient at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in 1951.